Translation - EnglishBiological Station warns of lagoons drying up in Doñana

Report calls for water restrictions in Matalascañas housing development

For decades, scientists have been raising the alarm about the uncontrolled extraction of water from the Doñana natural park aquifer. The problem remains unsolved, and now they are warning of the drying up of the park´s peridunal lagoons.

“We are concerned about the lagoons,” indicates Juan José Negro, Director of the Doñana Biological Station, an institute belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). This issue was studied on Monday by the park´s Participation Council. The drying up process of the lagoons – “which are the heart of Doñana” – is matched by a reduction in the aquifer water level, confirms Negro. However, he will not yet venture a definitive explanation for the phenomenon, adding that “no one is sure of what is happening.”

In recent years, the problem has focused on unchecked water extraction for agricultural use in the areas surrounding the park – a matter still unresolved. Researcher, Carmen Díaz-Paniagua, from the Doñana Biological Station, adds another factor: Water consumption in the Matalascañas housing development, located in Almonte (Huelva). Díaz-Paniagua has set out a report in which she warns that “the lagoons are no longer able to survive the drought years, with the result that even the most permanent lagoons are drying up.”

Faced with this situation, Díaz-Paniagua proposes limiting water use in Matalascañas, the area closest to the lagoons. On the one hand, she wants to raise awareness among home owners and summer holidaymakers of the “fragility of the ecosystem in which the housing development is integrated”. On the other hand, she calls for the authorities to take responsibility: “In dry years, special measures should be taken to reduce water consumption, which could range from hosepipe bans on gardens to restrictions on availability of water.”

Díaz-Paniagua also suggests transforming the Matalascañas golf course to put in place a ‘rustic’ approach. These types of golf courses already exist in some parts of Spain and “feature natural facilities which use rainwater for maintenance, without requiring further water supplies.”

The dozen coastal lagoons in Doñana are fed from two sources. In the rainy season, they are filled with run-off waters, and the rest of the year, the aquifer feeds into the lagoons and keeps the levels up. Almost all the lagoons dry up in the months with less precipitation. “In the case of most of the lagoons, the wet season is increasingly shorter and they are drier for longer periods,” confirms Díaz-Paniagua, who already raised the alert on this problem in a 2008 report. Only the Santa Olalla lagoon can be considered permanent. “Last year it was very close to drying up,” she warns, insisting that the Matalascañas housing development poses a real problem, because its only water source is the aquifer.

The Mayor of Almonte, José Antonio Domínguez Iglesias, does not want to hear talk of restrictions on water consumption in Matalascañas. He blames the situation on the rest of the authorities. “What we need to do is make sure the judgement of the 1992 Commission of Experts is complied with,” he says. According to Domínguez Iglesias, the Commission had planned to move the three Matalascañas water catchment areas to the central part of the aquifer, further away from the lagoons. Despite the tensions, the Mayor maintains that “the aquifer is absolutely fine at the moment”.

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